Being a Dick
by randomwaves
Summary: A drabble that came to me during a rewatch. Kid Dick needs a role in life, and finds one. But when the world changes, he doesn't know if he can. No pairings. No Veronica even. Enjoy!
AN: I don't own Veronica Mars or Dick, but I do have a lovely set of steak knives. This is a little drabble that bubbled up into me during a rewatch this week. It's the first thing I've written in about a decade that wasn't destined to be graded. Enjoy.

Once, when I was 10, My Dad sat me down and gave me a piece of advice. I remember it, because it was the only non-firearm/automobile related tip Dick Sr. ever really passed on. Seriously, for all that the Beve always seemed to want a relationship with him like I had, it was fairly shallow.

"Son" He said "Everyone has a role in life. You need to find yours."

So I thought about it. Maybe I needed a role model for who I wanted to be. At first my Dad seemed like a possibility, because everyone wants to be like their Dad when you're a kid. But at the same time, He made my Mom cry and throw things and that didn't seem to be good. For a week I thought I wanted to be Like Mr Kane, Duncan's Dad, but he was really busy trying to make Duncan like him already.

Mr. Echolls seemed to have it figured out, but...Even at the ripe age of ten, he scared the shit out of me. Logan didn't know I knew about the bruises, or the yelling. It never seemed to be the right time to bring them up, when they were fresh and Logan was hurting, or when he was throwing up over a stupid pear or whatever. Even then I knew all I could do was be there when I could and make him think of other things. Of video games, and comics, and hiding the maid's purse so she couldn't find it at the end of the day.

So after awhile I stopped looking for a role model. I started looking around at school, to see what I could be there. Duncan was the nice one, the one who the teachers liked, who told people when their shoelaces were untied, or helped the other kids with fractions and stuff. Logan brooded, threw out calculated barbs that made old lady teachers blush a little before they sent him off to the principals office, and projected a stone exterior so people wouldn't know he gave a damn about anything. I didn't know where I fit in, and that made me feel pretty left out. They never made me feel like that, but the situation did, you know?

Then, there came the Day of the Pudding.

It was lunch time, and we had all sat down at those long tables with our lunchboxes. Beaver's class was one table over, and when I looked over at him, he looked sick. Just sitting there in his little league shirt, all pale and gross looking. He had looked that way this morning, starting right after Mom had reminded him that Mrs. Whatever was going to pick him up for practice after school. He looked at me, and I swear we had some sort of crazy mental link brother conversation, the first and only one I ever remember us having. I looked at him, and I knew, I just KNEW he'd had another accident. I had teased him before about his sudden inability to keep his shit together (pun totally intended) before, but that was at home. This was school, and I couldn't let it get around that the Casablancas brothers didn't know how to go to the bathroom in time.

I unpacked my lunch while I thought about what to do. Sandwich, String cheese, orange, and...a possibility. The snack pack of chocolate pudding gave me an idea, a crazy, thrilling, terrible idea, which I've come to understand are my best kind. I peeled off the plastic, looked around to see if anyone was looking, and before I could talk myself out of it, I leaned forward, shoved it underneath me, and sat on it. It squished beneath me oozily, and I scooted around in it a little to spread it around. Then came the hard part. This could backfire miserably, but it was too late to turn back now. I turned to Logan.

"Do you smell that?"

"What?" he sniffed and shook his head

I made my face go wide, like I was realising something "Oh NO!" I yelled, jumping up on the table. I grabbed the pudding cup for good measure, so I could sorta show it was a joke and I hadn't ACTUALLY duced in my pants.

"I pooped my pants!" I yelled as loud as I could.

I swung the smashed cup around for good measure, spattering a few adjoining kids with specks of pudding. "Do the Poopy pants Dance!" I started shucking and jiving, wiggling my butt around to make sure everyone could see it. Everyone turned and stared, and to my relief, laughed. They laughed and pointed while I clowned around, even sticking my finger in the cup and eating a little of the "poo" and making faces. I glanced Cassidy's way, and he had thankfully gotten the idea and was leaving, holding his lunchbox to cover his own pants. I kept it up until a few teachers swooped in and made me get down off the table, and sent me off to clean up. I stopped at the doors to the cafeteria, looked over my shoulder with a smile and wiggled my butt one more time, earning a few more giggles from the other kids. It was the first truly hilarious thing I'd ever done on purpose, and it felt amazing. The attention and the laughing, and the knowing I'd made it happen were like...Well I didn't know what Ecstasy felt like when I was ten, but the first time I dropped it, I was reminded of that triumphant day.

The next day, I thought of something else to do, some other prank to pull, and then the day after that and the day after that. When I ran out of things to do to myself, I started in on other people. Beaver got the worst of it, mostly because he was such an easy target, and I was trying to make him toughen up a little, like Dad wanted. How was I to know he was so broken inside? Maybe he had tried to tell me once, but I was too far gone to notice it.

By the time school was over for the summer, no one seemed to expect anything from me other than to be funny, and pal around with my friends. I had found a role to play, and it was easy, even if it meant that no one took me seriously. Plus there was the bonus that some of the girls seemed to really really dig it.

By the time High school started, it was like I'd walled off an entire part of my brain that made me think serious thoughts. I mean, I did okay in school (and by okay, I mean the absolute bare minimum, as my reputation required) and I could still read and stuff, but it was like I'd worn the idea that I was a rich, shallow, funny playboy type that I couldn't take it off anymore. Logan could see though me, right down into the center of myself, maybe further than I could. But he never said anything. Maybe he likes the attention being on me, because then it isn't on him. I was the Dick people knew me to be, and they liked me for being that way. At least they knew what to expect from me, and continuity is important.

And then Beaver jumped off the Grand, and the world spun around backwards.

I sat on a private beach in the Dominican Republic, flashing Dick Sr's cash, and thinking about who I was; How I'd treated my brother, and other people, even the damn maid. The wall had come down, and all the thoughts I hadn't had were like a wave crashing over me. I thought about Mr Echolls killing Lily, and what Woody had done to my brother and all those other kids. I thought about all the funny-at-the-time quips I'd said without really thinking about them, and how much they must have bothered other people. I thought about all the times when I'd had an instinct to be kind, and I'd ignored it because it didn't seem like something I would do.

When I finished thinking about it, I went to a bar, and got stinking, puking, incoherently drunk. Homeless drunk. Drown in your own sick drunk. When the resort security picked me up and brought me back, Dick Sr. had already arranged my ticket home. I tried to tell him we hadn't treated Cassidy okay, and that was our first mistake, and he just looked at me like he didn't understand what I was saying. Maybe he didn't. I was vomiting at the same time.

When the plane touched down, and I was in the Limo back to Neptune, I decided to be different. College could let me be different, and Mom had already told me she'd gotten me into one. I could be more like Duncan, take his role since he'd abandoned it to wherever. I could try being nice to girls in a deeper way, maybe actually read the books assigned. I could start over, and even decided to be a Richard, instead of a Dick. It felt Metaphorical.

When the acceptance packet came, and the college was Hurst, I almost cried. It didn't feel fair. An oddly large majority of Neptune High ended up at Hurst, and I couldn't change in front of them. Because then they'd remember who I was, and think I was trying to be something I wasn't. Besides, I'd been like this forever...it was what I knew. Changing would have required me to be brave, and I could only do that when I was wasted.

So I went back to being me. Surfing, mood alteration, drinks and bimbos. I was the Dick I knew I could be. Even if sometimes, late at night when my bed at the Grand was empty, My mind would rise up to the roof, and think about Cassidy.

And I would get the most delicious, strange, ghostly flavor of chocolate pudding on my tongue.


End file.
